


Psi Corps Posters!

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [87]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Boarding School, Canon Compliant, Culture Shock, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, High School, Psi Corps, School, Telepath culture, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 04:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12950925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: Because people want to know what they actually look like and say (and what they don't).The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	Psi Corps Posters!

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

_Artwork hopefully coming soon!_

People often wonder: What do Psi Corps posters actually look like? They're mentioned in canon, but never shown. What we do see on-screen is the sad product of lazy writing.

We see out-of-place slogans on otherwise blank walls:

OBEY!

(No, no one ever actually places this on the walls of schools, let alone headquarters buildings... And have you ever seen a school with posters on the walls saying 'DISOBEY AUTHORITY'?)

How about:

TRUST THE CORPS!

(Pssst... this is the messaging directed via the media (e.g. the mundane-controlled Ministry of Public Information) at _normals_ , who are inclined to distrust telepaths, even the "good ones" whom they can control. Telepaths don't put this on the walls of their _own administrative buildings_ , where no one needs to be reminded of the entirely obvious - even if the writers placed such signs there to send entirely the _opposite_ message to viewers.)

You'd have to believe that the Corps is _suicidally inept_ to place such signs in official buildings.

The Corps is not suicidally inept.

The writers had a few brief moments of screen-time to maximize their "the Corps is evil!" message, and this is what they came up with.

(I laughed. Hard.)

Posters on the walls of Corps schools present pro-social messages in line with the values of the Corps and telepath society. I started to show a few examples in Andy's second story [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10413966/chapters/22996560), and Dylan's first story [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10751193/chapters/23837208).

Before editing for narrative flow, that scene read as follows:

            He stomped off to the far side of the cafeteria to eat his meal alone, and enjoy his three slices of cake in peace.

            The posters in the recreation facilities focused on sport, with slogans such as “Jogging is fun!”, “Take an interest in martial arts!” or “Self defense training keeps you safe.” There were images of telepath youth happily practicing tai chi in the sunshine, or using martial arts moves to fend off scary looking normal attackers.

            It made Dylan uncomfortable to see normals presented as monstrous caricatures. _Normals weren’t like that_ , Dylan thought. _What were they teaching these young people to believe?_

            The walls of the dormitories were covered in posters about the importance of industry in one’s studies, or encouraging hard work in certain fields, such as “Science and engineering make our future bright.” Some posters encouraged social unity: “We are all brothers and sisters, responsible for one another,” or “What hurts one, hurts us all.” Other posters were more explicitly political: “Sacrifice for the Corps brings honor” or “We are the future, selflessly loyal to the Earth Alliance and her Constitution.”

            Dylan stared at that poster in particular. A young telepath in a crisp school uniform stood with his hand over his heart, while the EA flag flew in the background. For some reason, Dylan had expected the text to say “loyal to Psi Corps” instead, but it didn’t.

\-----

As you can see, there is still a cultural gap between telepath society and normal society. While normal society is focused on the _individual_ , telepath society focuses on the _collective_. Individual industry is expected, but never at the expense of one's peers. Excessive competitiveness - competitiveness that directly hurts others - is frowned upon, even punished. Politically, Psi Corps posters present young people as "selflessly loyal to the Earth Alliance," its Constitution, and its laws - _absolutely not_ as loyal to the Corps as some separate entity from the Earth Alliance, because that would be dangerously subversive of mundane control, and place all telepaths' lives at risk. All Corps messaging, remember, is ultimately subject to mundane control, just as mundanes wrote the Psi Corps Student Handbook.

The Ministry of Public Information (the folks who produce the Psi Corps PSAs) promotes messaging to the normal populace to "trust the Corps" (because "we uphold our end of the charter and keep telepaths in line, for your benefit... we're everywhere for _your_ convenience, normals"). The Ministry of Public Information is 100% comprised of normals, though they work in conjunction with the Corps to make the PSAs (for normals).

Internal Corps messaging is different.

Telepaths who grew up in the Corps don't need to be reminded to "trust the Corps" (because it's obvious - mundanes sure aren't looking out for them, are they?). Laters may need to be reminded of this, but it's not done through posters on the walls, because the posters are for everyone.

Through posters, telepath students are taught pro-social, culturally consistent messages: to avoid harmful competition with peers, to maintain modesty, to look out for each other's well-being, and so forth. (Officially, students in Corps schools cannot have romantic or sexual partners until _after graduation_ \- at age nineteen. While some students obviously do have such relationships, students must be discreet, because if they are caught engaging in such immodest behavior, it can lead to serious punishment from the teachers.)

\-----

I once saw fan art of what was intended to be a poster in a kid's dorm room at a Psi Corps school. It depicted a poster of a woman with cleavage (nope - very immodest... telepaths don't show cleavage! - because of culture, not law), and she was saying "The Corps is your friend!"

No, the Corps is _your parents_. And said parents set strict norms of behavior - boundaries that many telepaths will push the moment they get a chance, either while they're at school or on rare excursions off campus in their later teens: drinking, having sex, or otherwise getting in trouble.

Because teenagers + strict boarding school, ya know?

(Obviously, not everyone does, but some kids are always just looking for a way to break the rules and get away with it. No matter what the posters say.)

So next time someone's looking for a story about some kid in the Corps who "questions authority and pushes boundaries," it's the kid who's sneaking into his/her boy/girlfriend's room after sundown, the kid secretly smoking, the kid who gets too drunk at a mundane bar when he/she gets off campus (even when drinking is legal at his/her age), the two kids caught taking off each other's clothes in the bushes, the kids who team up to pull an immature prank, the kid who steals another kid's gloves to force him/her to leave the room naked... you get the idea.

Most kids don't run away, because running away will get you swiftly _killed_ \- either by mundanes or by rogue telepaths, whoever finds you first. And if you don't end up swiftly killed, you _will_ end up trafficked.

Either way, good people in the Corps will probably be killed trying to find your selfish ass and save you (as someone was killed when Bester ran away, and even more people were killed when Fatima ran away).


End file.
